CFP: African-American Literature Collection (5/31/06; collection)

full name / name of organization:

Shelia Collins

contact email:

she_annco@hotmail.com

“Speaking in Tongues”: A Study in African-American Literary Discourse,Culture, and Rhetoric

Papers are solicited for a collection of essays tentatively titled:“‘Speaking in Tongues’: A Study in African-American Literary Discourse,Culture, and Rhetoric.” This collection of essays will examine thehistorical and literary experience of African Americans in the New World byoffering in-depth investigations into African-American culture and rhetoric.Papers in this collection should challenge the perceptions ofAfrican-American culture and engage in literary and rhetorical strategiesthat give authority to the diverse cultural discourses articulated by suchwriters as, but not limited to, Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, ZoraNeale Hurston, W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, and/or ToniMorrison, and such theorists as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Houston A.Baker. For example, how are the rhetorical strategies of David Walkersignified in Ralph Ellison’s work? Or, are they?

Possible topics for this collection may include: the configurations of thebody, invisibility and selfhood, narrative structure, rhetoric, humor,aesthetics, memory, popular culture, folklore, music, historical studies inculture and rhetoric, letters, and African-American literary discourse ingeneral. Works on both fiction and non-fiction are acceptable.